Lora Pappa, Founder, President and CEO of METAdrasi, has studied International Relations at the Institut de Hautes Etudes Internationales et du Développement (IHEID). In 2016, she was awarded from IHEID the first ever Alumna of the Year Award.

Since the early 1990s, Lora Pappa’s main interest and focus of work relates to the reception and integration of refugees and migrants. Through all her extensive experience in the field, Lora Pappa was aiming to find the best possible ways for consolidating efforts and facilitating life conditions of refugees and asylum-seekers, and, particularly, unaccompanied minors. In 2010, after seven years as a part of the UNHCR and fifteen years working with NGOs and the National Youth Foundation, Lora Pappa founded NGO METAdrasi – Action for Migration and Development, in order to cover crucial gaps through innovative intervention.

In 2015, Lora Pappa was awarded the North South Prize of the Council of Europe for her outstanding work in promoting solidarity, democracy and human rights.In 2016, she was honoured by the President of the Republic of Portugal with the title of Grand Officer of the Order of Freedom. In 2017, she was awarded the “Legion of Honour” decoration by the French